Don Luis Fonseca is a dedicated farmer of Maize in the Jerusalen municipality in the department of Cundinamarca in Colombia. Don Luis said that in the first half of 2013 lost 90% of the expected production by reduction in traditional rainfall. Following this, he and other farmers decided not to try planting in the second half. However, they did not know that weather conditions would be optimal for production in the second half!. Now, Don Luis believes that if he and his fellow farmers have earlier information on the possible climate conditions in your region in the coming months and how their crops might respond to these conditions, would be more successful in their farming.

A maize farmer in Colombia with a technician, setting up a meteorological station. Photo: D. Obando (CIAT)

Whilst in other regions of the world there are a range of initiatives related to agro-climatic forecasting, there is a big gap in Latin America, which provides a tremendous opportunity for contribution with a targeted and well-integrated initiative to change in agro-climatic risk management, the elaboration of public policies in decision-making and programmatic support (based on historical analysis, monitoring systems and agro-climatic forecasts) using state-of-the-art approaches.

The goal of the project, Tailored Agro-Climate Services and food security information for better decision making in Latin America – AGROCLIMAS, is to help closing this gap, taking into account the needs of the Latin American agricultural sector in terms of agro-climatic information and services in the context of climate variability. The project also evidences the technical capacity to address those needs through the collaboration with strategic partners.

Target countries: The project will be implemented in Colombia, Guatemala and Honduras.